Chichester Greenway

by Alton Saunders

  Chapter 5:

  THE PATTERN

  Neither Akkri nor Vonn felt quite ready to leave. They sat back in their chairs, absorbed in that scene from long ago. Vonn could hardly believe that they had actually witnessed the great moment of change. For centuries philosophers and historians had discussed whether there had been one particular moment when this great event had happened and whether it had occurred within a single group of individuals or throughout the whole population of Vika. Later history made it clear that it was an ongoing and constantly developing process, but no one had known for certain when or how it started. For many Vikans, deepening their understanding of this ever-unfolding process was a way of life in itself. Now the evidence had at last come clearly into view – there had indeed been a moment in time when the life of Vika changed forever.

  Akkri stood up. There were tears in his eyes and he did not know why. He let his gaze wander across the gently glowing interior of their work place. “Vonn, this dome we’re in, and the other domes in the city – don’t you see? They’re the direct descendants of the huts that little girl saw in her mind all those years ago. She was one of the founding architects of our city.”

  Vonn nodded her agreement. She felt too moved to say anything. She had never given much thought to the domes that were, in fact, a unique feature of the City of Silver and Gold. Tall, delicately tapered buildings like Library Five could be found in other cities on Vika, as could the single storey complexes with their gardens and pools and cloisters, or massive marble structures like Library Seven, but nowhere else were there domes like these. Long ago, dome-shaped structures had first appeared, here, close to the great river, and here they still were.

  “Lunch?” said Akkri.

  “Yes, lunch.” Vonn got up and walked out into the wide plaza that formed the second floor of the greater dome of Library Four. They passed several other domes used for individual or group study, set amidst the shrubs and flowers and fountains that mirrored in miniature the park-like exterior of the city. The lighting was the natural light of day and the air was so crisp and fresh that it was hard to realise that they were not outside in the sunshine. They sat down at a cafeteria by the outer wall where they could look down on the park below them, and watch the people strolling along the stone paths that threaded their way among the lakes and flowerbeds and groves of trees.

  Vonn became aware that someone had stopped beside her. She looked up. It was the lady in the green robe who had been at the meeting yesterday.

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “No, of course not. We haven’t had a chance to meet properly yet, have we? I’m afraid I can’t remember your name, but I’m Vonn and this is my work partner, Akkri.”

  “I’m Korriott.” She leaned forward and touched fingertips with each of them. “I didn’t know anyone at the meeting yesterday so I’m very pleased to come across you like this.”

  “All part of the pattern, I expect,” said Akkri.

  “Yes, certainly, all part of the pattern,” said Korriott. “We are each part of one another’s lives and we always have been.”

  Vonn and Akkri listened to her with respect. They knew from her green robe that she was one of those who had dedicated themselves to gaining a deeper understanding of the creative processes of life. There was nothing new in what she had just said, but it was spoken with a confidence and simplicity that showed she was speaking from experience, not merely repeating the words of others.

  “Korriott,” said Akkri, “could you tell us a bit more. I don’t know if I really understand or not.”

  Vonn smiled. As so often happened, Akkri had spoken for her, too.

  “I will certainly try, but first I must congratulate you. Your discovery is a wonderful step forward in our knowledge. I think it will change our perspective on history and many other areas of our lives. You must be feeling very happy and excited.”

  They were, but now they were feeling surprised, too. They knew that all knowledge was potentially available to everyone and that others working in the area of historical research had probably noticed that a shift in understanding had taken place. Korriott, though, was not a historian, yet she seemed to know about it already.

  A young girl in an ultra tunic came over to their table. “Lunch?” she asked.

  “Yes, lunch for the three of us,” said Akkri. “Bring whatever you like – that is, if that suits you, Korriott.”

  “Yes, that suits me fine.” Like most Vikans she ate very simply. With an abundance of food freely available to everyone, few people felt any inclination to be greedy, though there was nothing to stop them being greedy if they wanted to. It was much the same with houses and possessions. Everyone enjoyed the fine public buildings, some of them built on truly palatial lines, but their own homes were usually simple and functional. There were always some people who chose to live in mansions or palaces, but after a while they often grew tired of huge galleries and luxurious banqueting halls and reverted to simpler accommodation.

  Akkri would occasionally come across a magnificent palace or castle high up in the mountains or deep in the forest. He felt no envy of the occupants because he knew he could live in a palace if he wanted to. He much preferred his parents’ modest house in the countryside, though, with its wide wooden balcony where they often ate their meals together, looking out towards the distant mountains. He also felt a certain amusement when a glorious palace was one day no longer there and it was clear that the occupants had decided that more homely accommodation really suited them better.

  “It’s hard for us to imagine what it must be like in a society that does not co-operate with the basic laws of life,” Korriott began. “Things that we take for granted would seem like wonders to them, and their way of life would appear very strange to us. I have never studied the findings of those who have detected intelligent life on certain other planets. I know they have been judged unsuitable for contact and perhaps that is because their outlook on life is too different from ours. We could learn to speak the same language as them, maybe, but they still might not understand us and we might not understand them. I very much hope that this project we are moving towards will lead to contact with a species that also understands the concept of the unfolding pattern of life.”

  “You’re saying ‘pattern’ again,” Akkri put in, “and that’s the very part I don’t understand. What does it really mean?”

  “It is something we are gradually learning to understand as the centuries go by,” said Korriott with her quiet smile. “When that little girl – her name was Pell, by the way; I went straight back to that very special moment you discovered and I stayed there for a while and I heard her name mentioned – when Pell saw those dome-shaped huts as a picture in her mind, the material for the idea was already there in her experience. She mentioned the domed shape of half of an egg. Above her was another example, the domed shape of the sky. Her mind made a jump. It transferred that shape which life had already produced to a new need or situation. Like Pell, we can’t think up something entirely new, however hard we try. Only life itself can do that. Life itself provides the pattern.”

  Vonn and Akkri were silent for a while, thinking about what Korriott had said. “But I can imagine a horrep with wings,” said Akkri. “That would be something entirely new, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, not entirely new,” Korriott replied. “You know what horreps are like and you know what wings are like because you have seen bats and birds. If you think of a winged horrep you are simply combining two things that you already know. Look, let’s try an experiment. Close your eyes.” Akkri and Vonn both closed their eyes, wondering what was coming next. “Now try to imagine an entirely new colour, something no one has ever seen before.”

  In the silence that followed, Vonn could see, through her closed eyelids, the faint glow of light from their surroundings, but try as she might she was unable to conjure up any new colour. Akkri, too, had no suc
cess and started to chuckle. “Yes, I see what you mean,” he said. “If we’d actually seen a brand new colour, that really would have been something new. I don’t suppose you managed, Vonn?”

  “No, no luck,” said Vonn with a smile.

  “So life is thinking the thoughts and we tune in to them, is that it?” asked Akkri.

  “Yes, that is one way of putting it. We are not just passive spectators, though. Our own thoughts and wishes and choices are an integral part of the ongoing development of our planet.”

  “So the world would be different if there had been no human beings,” said Vonn.

  “Yes, indeed. There would be no City of Silver and Gold, for a start.”

  Vonn laughed. It was so obvious she felt a little ashamed of her remark.

  “The world would be very different, too, if we human beings had made other choices in the past. We might have chosen to ignore all that life was showing us. Vortinn was clearly a natural leader. If he had founded a city built on fear and suspicion instead of trust, our whole history would have been different.”

  “Here’s your lunch, people!” The girl in the ultra tunic gave them a friendly smile as she set out their meal on the table.

  “Thank you, dear,” said Korriott.

  “Good, soup!” Akkri exclaimed. “I haven’t had soup for ages!”

  “Korriott,” said Vonn, “you seem to know already what happened with Vortinn and those ancestors of ours. Was that really the first time that something like that happened?”

  “The huts, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Things have always come into being, apparently from nothing, so in that sense it was nothing new. Our universe came into being long, long ago, apparently from nothing, and there was a time when there was no planet Vika. What Vortinn had come to realise was that our human consciousness is itself a step in the gradual development of life, and that our choices are now a part of that process. Up till then people had thought of themselves as somehow separate from the rest of life and that everything they needed or wanted depended only on them.

  “We are so used to life supplying what we need that it is hard for us to understand how they once viewed the world. They must have felt anxious nearly all the time. We have become more like the birds and the flowers. Birds don’t worry about where their next meal is coming from. They find what they need and then eventually their time is over and they die and pass away into nothingness, just as whole species have died and passed away, and just as we, too, will one day die and pass away.”

  Vonn felt a pang of sadness. She thought of her grandmother and the village up in the mountains. She must go there again some day, but it would not be the same.

  “Shapes and forms and colours existed long before we humans came on the scene,” Korriott continued, “but now we are a part of the process ourselves. We are helping to paint the picture and we are each a part of the picture. The thoughts and feelings and hopes and actions of each one of us affect everyone and everything else and the complete picture is what we call the pattern.”

  Akkri grinned. “Thank you, Korriott. I’m not sure, but I think I do understand it just a little bit better now.”

  “First call,” said Vonn.

  “We’re meeting in Library Five today aren’t we? How about walking there?” Akkri suggested. “We should have time before our meeting starts and I could do with some exercise. We’ve been sitting down most of the day!”

  They set off down the stairs. The flute player was no longer there, but the sound of the fountain followed them as they walked out into the sunshine and set off in the direction of Library Five.

  * * *